When was Parliamentary Government established?

• A. 1729
• B. 1719
• C. 1749
• D. 1760

Answer: (A)

Parliamentary Government means the executive is drawn from the legislature and must retain its support to stay in office; the government is responsible to Parliament, not to a separate ruler. In Britain, this way of governing didn’t appear overnight but formed as a practice in the early 18th century, with the cabinet becoming the real center of power and the leader of that cabinet—the prime minister—taking the lead in policy. By the late 1720s, the pattern of collective responsibility, where ministers support the decisions of the cabinet and resign if they can’t, had become the standard way of running the country. That consolidation around 1729 is why that year is cited as the establishment of parliamentary government in this context. The later years show the system continuing and evolving, but the late 1720s marks the moment when the cabinet-led, Parliament-centric form was firmly in place.